As One Devil to Another

I don’t sit around and contemplate the works of devils and angels very much. I believe there really are such beings but “out of sight, out of mind” is a powerful phenomenon. Even with fictional reminders like The Screwtape Letters and Frank Peretti’s triology, the thought that there are “powers and principalities” at work around me seems unreal. Having read The Screwtape Letters years ago, and being a fan of C.S. Lewis, I was very happy to have the opportunity to review As One Devil to Another by Richard Platt. Styled after The Screwtape Letters, Platt’s protagonist is Screwtape’s brother, Slashreap. Slashreap writes letters of advice to his nephew, Screwtape’s son, Scardagger, intended to guide him in his demonic pursuits.

It is fascinating to contemplate the battle for souls that goes on around us all the time. Platt has insight, tinged with humor, into what Satan’s minions might be thinking as they strategize ways to tempt us away from God (whom they refer to as “the Adversary”).  Political correctness, competition, disability, homosexuality, education, despair, comfort, art, religion, literature, television, wealth, poverty, empathy, gratitude and many other aspects of life are examined from a devilish perspective.

While you may agree or disagree with any of the perspectives, one thing is for certain. You will be prompted to think. How should Christians approach their business dealings? What does charity mean and how and in what circumstances is it to be employed? What does forgiveness mean and how is our personal forgiveness affected by our ability to forgive others?

What I like most about both Screwtape and As One Devil to Another is the literary style of the letter-as-narrative. I believe that C.S. Lewis would be proud of Richard Platt’s work. There are several hat tips to Mr. Lewis scattered throughout the book and C.S. Lewis fans will appreciate them immensely. Strong work, Mr. Platt. Strong work.

*Tyndale House Publishers has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an impartial review.*

I have one certificate for a copy of As One Devil to Another to giveaway. Instructions on how to enter are listed below.  Please make sure to leave your contact info in each comment. Contest valid for U.S. entries only.

Mandatory entry:

• What is your favorite C.S. Lewis book and why?

For additional entries (leave a comment for each):

• Subscribe to this blog (rss or email)
• Follow me (@claudiamedic) on Twitter
• Post about this giveaway on your own blog, Facebook, Twitter, or others (please specify in your comment).

The giveaway will end on June 6, 2012 at 6 p.m. EST and will be chosen by a random number generator.

Something’s Not-Quite-Right in America

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 is a fascinating and thought-provoking book. In it, Charles Murray makes the case that there are diverging classes in America and that, rather than a division based on race, the division is most acutely indicated by trends in what he refers to as “white America”.

Acknowledging at the outset that there are “lies, damned lies and statistics” Mr. Murray uses ample statistical analysis to paint a picture of two divergent worlds, existing simultaneously yet seldom-if-ever intersecting. Metaphorically existing in a “thick bubble,” the “upper class” (his term for the top 5% in both education and income) have no concept of how the “lower class” lives. There is even a “quiz” in mid-book that allows the reader to determine how thick of a “bubble” they live in. With scores from 0-99, the quiz categorizes the expected results for various people/classes. He asserts that the main readership of the book will likely be “OES” (“Overeducated Elitist Snobs” — a group to which he assigns himself), and judging by the two most “helpful” reviews on Amazon.com (positive and negative) he is correct. Obviously, some people with good educational backgrounds have read and reviewed “Coming Apart”.

He creates hypothetical communities to anthropomorphize his numerical arguments. The white, highly-educated, wealthy world is deemed “Belmont” while the world of high-school dropouts and ambition-less workers is “Fishtown”.

The conclusion drawn is that there has been a decay in four areas causing an immense discrepancy between the “upper class” and the “lower class” in America. Those four areas are: marriage, industriousness, honesty and religion.

I would encourage people to read Coming Apart.  While all the issues may not be as clear-cut as they might seem at first glance, there’s little denying that that the fabric of American society has changed — and not for the better.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

A Ranger’s Trail

Set in the Texas hill country just after the Civil War, A Ranger’s Trail follows the story of Buck Morgan and Leta Denning as they navigate the dicey circumstances of the hoodoo war in Mason County. Leta and her young son Ricky, along with Leta’s brother Andy, witnessed the revenge-killing of Leta’s husband, Derrick. The scars they bear are the same as those of the families of the German immigrants also caught in the crossfire of a German-Anglo feud based on misunderstanding and mistrust. A Ranger’s Trail exposes the emotions and actions created when lines are drawn between factions of any sort.

Author Darlene Franklin weaves historical facts into the story of her fictional characters in a believable way. The women and men are strong as most real Texans are, and they hold suitably strong convictions. The problem begins when the settlers take the law into their own hands. A Ranger’s Trail made it easy to see how battle lines can be drawn before the implications of those lines are fully realized. The story is well written and is a cautionary tale. It is easy to feel righteously justified in a position without fully taking into account the intricacies of the situation.

Does forgiveness or lack thereof create a ripple-effect? Can holding a grudge or releasing someone to the “ultimate Judge” change lives? Vengeance is God’s. We do well to remember that.

Change Comes to Dinner

Beans. It starts with beans. I was raised in the south with dried beans on the menu several times a week so I love them, but for many people the simple use of the word invokes visions of boredom and blandness (at best) and off-color jokes (at worst). Heirloom. That’s some dust-catcher your grandmother gave you, right? Beans + Heirloom = Heirloom beans called Good Mother Stallard from a company called Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Food, delivered by mail order. That is the improbable start of a book that examines the way we eat in America. For most of us however, comfort food means something other than Good Mother Stallard beans. That’s bad news.

There is bad news almost everywhere we look these days — and that includes the shelves of our local grocery store. Ingredient lists with words we can’t pronounce, let alone explain the meaning of, are commonplace. Entire industries exist that analyze taste-bud tissue reaction to artificial ingredients (never mind that some of them use cells from aborted fetuses to culture that tissue). Sure, it might taste like cheese on those chips, but it’s all a chemical illusion. More frightening still is the fact that those ingredients may be simultaneously making us sick and making us addicts — addicted to the very chemical that is threatening our health.

Along comes a writer, Katherine Gustafson, who sets out to see what alternatives there are to the highly-processed, chemical concoctions most of us call “food”…alternatives to food coming from half a planet away…alternatives to having to use a detective to find out the source of what’s on our plate. As a “foodie”, I was interested in what Change Comes to Dinner was all about. As a skeptic of activists, I was apprehensive about reading Change. Sure, all that fake stuff is bad for us…but let’s be realistic here. We live fast paced lives, where a “home cooked meal” likely comes from a bag in the freezer that is usually just heat-and-serve. Was this book going to be one more exercise in guilt and frustration for those of us who don’t grow our own organic produce, wear only organic natural fibers and ride our bikes everywhere?

I’m happy to say that it was anything but an exercise in frustration and guilt. Change Comes to Dinner is well written and captures the depth and breadth of alternatives to the industrial food complex in a readable and entertaining way. Ms. Gustafson writes of rooftop greenhouses, inner city farms, a hospital that uses local produce and serves gourmet meals, student programs, small farm co-ops and everything in between.

If you’ve ever paid a high price for a store-bought tomato that was completely tasteless, you’ve been party to what has come to be known as commercial agribusiness. Rather than simply lamenting the “efficient” but often nutritionally void food we often find at our mega-marts, Katherine Gustafson shows that there are myriad choices for healthy, tasty, locally grown foods and that those non-mega-producers are actually good for the local economy and for the community as a whole. “There is value in diversity…[and] people deserve more than the tasteless schlock their corporate overlords deign to provide,” she writes. She searched for “…people who dared to strike out on their own to build a new vision of an alternative food universe….In Virginia, an entrepreneur sells the products of local farms to city dwellers in an old school bus cum roving produce market. In Iowa, an extension agent helps retiring farmers pass their farms down to younger ones. In Missouri, an organization doubles the value of food stamps used at farmers’ markets. In Arizona, a company develops a high-yield, low-risk method of growing food in shipping containers. In Washington State, a cooperative uses a mobile slaughterhouse to give small farmers access to needed facilities.” There are alternatives out there!

Whether you are concerned about the environment, troubled about your health vis a vis the food you eat, or simply someone who wants to eat food that tastes good, Change Comes to Dinner is worth reading. It will change the way you look at food. The book was so good, I may go back for seconds!

Change Comes to Dinner is published by St. Martin’s Press and will be released on May 8, 2012.

Never too young to learn “God Gave Us Love”

 

There are many things that divide people and, sadly, religion can be one of those things.  Sometimes, people just aren’t very likable. This beautiful little book reminds us that we are to love others because of God’s love for us, even if we may not like them at the moment.

“God Gave Us Love” is a beautiful conversation between “Little Cub” and “Grandpa” which begins when the two are fishing while those pesky otters make a ruckus nearby. Little Cub worries that the otters will scare all the fish away. Grandpa reminds her that “Half the fun of fishing is being together…”

Simply profound theology is packed into this children’s book. “Any time we show love we’re sharing a bit of [God’s] love…” The ultimate gift of love from God to us was His Son. “God Gave Us Love” tells children that the gift of Jesus is “…a God-size love.”

*I was provided with a complementary copy of this title through the Blogging For Books program (http://www.waterbrookmultnomah.com/bloggingforbooks/) in exchange for an honest review.

Stories of Faith and Courage from Firefighters & First Responders

 

I have to admit that, after a career in emergency services, I don’t often think of “Christian” and “firefighter” in the same sentence. Not that I don’t know some Christian firefighters, but the overwhelming atmosphere in the fire service/EMS is not one that is commonly associated with a “Christian vibe”. Bawdy talk, dark humor and sometimes frank immorality can be more the norm. Being a Christian first responder can be a challenge to one’s faith.

Stories of Faith and Courage from Firefighters & First Responders is a collection of 365 days of devotional stories from first responders intended to provide encouragement for life on the front lines of the mission field that’s called “emergency services”. Facing death and destruction head-on should serve as a reminder that life is fleeting and that “…none of us is assured of our tomorrows here on Earth.” Somehow though, it’s easy to forget.

Authored by fire and emergency service personnel, fire service chaplains, flight nurses and spouses of first responders, Stories of Faith and Courage addresses common issues faced by those exceptional people that we call “heroes”. After all, those “heroes” are human with feet of clay just like everyone else.

The book includes stories of seeing God’s hand in a fire call, reminders that “saving” someone can be more than about their physical life, or a gentle nudge to remember that marriages need to be “fireproofed”. This devotional book will be an encouragement to Christian first responders and a witness for Christ for those who may not know Him.

For civilians, this devotional can serve as a reminder to pray daily for those who do “rush in when the whole world is rushing out”, being ever mindful of the fact that it could be our loved ones or ourselves who need them next.

Bloody Well Done

 

“Blood brothers and blue bloods. Bloodletting and spatter patterns. The idea of blood flows through human culture the same way the real stuff flows through our veins. In almost every religion, there are blood sacrifices or blood rites. In almost every culture, there are rules for whether or not to eat blood, and how. There are blood ties, blood oaths, and countless blood-soaked legends. Why was blood so important to our ancestors, and why does it retain such emotional power today?”

Blood and guts are part of being a paramedic….Once a paramedic, always a paramedic….And I was a paramedic….so when I saw “Red: The True Story of Blood” by Tanya Lloyd Kyi (Annick Press, 2012) I knew I had to read it. It didn’t disappoint.

From sociological, religious, psychological, medical as well as physiological angles, “Red” addresses the history of blood throughout the world. In a youth-friendly red-and-black style, “Red” uses anecdotes, from history and science along with clever comic-strip style to examine blood.

While there is some graphic content, the topic of blood is tastefully addressed throughout the book. There are controversial subjects touched upon, including AIDS, transubstantiation (the term itself is not used in the book), gangs and ritual human sacrifice, so this book isn’t for young children. Read in proper context with good adult guidance, there are vast seeds for discussion and further study.